What makes free jazz the equivalent now of punk rock in the 70s?

More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2012
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May Day

Well, I often listen to all of Jazz on 3 (with the ever-present Jez Nelson), so it's not that I have a general aversion to contemporary jazz, but I am highly coloured by the experience of hearing Evan Parker, in a trio, play a small venue, when how the first set ended made me think, quite wrongly, that the second might not be so unrelenting, whereas I shouldn't have come back.

No, what I have in mind took an hour or so on the show very recently, with crass vocals - both the words and how they were delivered - and a deliberate emphasis on, whether or not people could do so (I have no way of knowing), not playing well.

There is no merit in naming the bands, but I suspect that, for the sake of good / bad publicity, some punk rockers hammed up their musical inexpertise, or did not trouble to develop any ability that they had. Some bands, as punk was never a uniform approach, achieved a raw effect by actually by putting basic rhythmic elements together with a rough-hewn melody, not peddling the others' feigned or lacking competence, but betraying a desire to create rebellious music that was worth hearing in its own right, rather than as a necessary element ina riotous sideshow. (Other bands were more musically sophisticated still, but consistent with fitting into the general picture of punk.)

This jazz that I heard on Jazz on 3, which I shall dub runk pock, was deliberately of the emperor's new clothes type, which free jazz can be at risk of seeming or being. However, although I know that I cannot play a saxophone as Parker does, I do also know when I hear what could be done by a few mates of mine and me with some musical instruments, mikes, recording-equipment, and, of course, beer: if I ever wanted to hear such a thing, I would just play the recording, and at least know that I was the one taking the piss.


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